NEWS AND EVENTS

Dr. Norman Pereira recently published the paper "Post-Soviet North American Historiography of Russia." Find it in Canadian Slavonic Papers Volume 53 Nos. 2, 3 and 4.

Congratulations to student Samantha Williams on winning the 2012 Yuri Galzov Memorial Award. The award celebrates Samantha's outstanding capacity to combine civic duty and charitable service with a love for the humanities.  The award was presented by Marina Glazov at the 2012 Russian night.

Watch a documentary film about the Intensive Russian Program abroad, "MAPLE LEAVES IN PETERSBURG"

Kudos to Ben McVicker, former Dalhousie Russian major!

The Canadian Association of Slavists is proud to announce the results of the 2009 CAS Annual Essay Contest for Best Graduate and Undergraduate Essays.

The CAS essay prize for the best Graduate essay is awarded to Ben McVicker, an MA student at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (CERES) at the University of Toronto (nominated by Prof. Ed Schatz) for his essay “The Creation and Transformation of a Cultural Icon: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in Post-Soviet Russia, 1994-2008.”

Dalhousie Magazine celebrates our anniversary too! 

The "Dalhousie Magazine" (Winter 2010) features an article about us. Read an article, "From Russia with Love," and stay tuned!

Past Events

• Making Ukrainian Easter Eggs on Tuesday, March 30 from 16:00-19:00, McCain 3014 (Russian Lounge). Instructor: Dr. Shannon Spasova.
• Guest lecture by Dr. Thomas Lahusen (University of Toronto) on "Nostalgia for Cinema: The Soviet Experiment of Cinefication", Thursday, March 25, 2010, 16:00, McCain 2016
• Guest lecture by Dr. Elena Baraban (University of Manitoba) on "The Battle of Stalingrad in Soviet Film," Monday, March 8, 16:00, McCain 1102.
• Guest lecture by Assist. Prof. Yuri Corrigan (Wooster College) on "Theories of Integrity in Dostoevsky and Chekhov," Thursday, February 11, McCain 2016.
• The Annual Russian Night Concert (21 November, Saturday, 6 pm, All Nations Christian Reformed Church, 2535 Robie Street) this year featured a special guest from Moscow, PSOY KOROLENKO, in a live performance "POWERЬ & ПОЙNT".

                             The concert was followed by the Russian style dinner.

• Meeting the Holocaust Survivor, 27 October 2009, 10:00-11:30 AM, McCain 2118. In 1989, after more than 40 years of silence, Philip Riteman began to speak to audiences about his Holocaust experience, giving testimony as a survivor of the Dahau Death Camp. Philip Riteman is the recipient of the 2009 Order of Nova Scotia.

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OPERA NOVA SCOTIA
May 29–31, 2009

The Rake’s Progress
Igor Stravinsky

Sung in English, fully staged with professional orchestra, the opera is directed by Roberta Barker, with Walter H. Kemp music director. The cast represents a cross-section of today's Nova Scotian vocal talent, featuring Peter Gillis, Stacie Dunlop, Gregory Servant, Paula Rockwell, Lucy Hayes-Davis, John Lindsay-Botten, Robert Milne, and Josh Whelan.

Tickets, General Admission $20.00, Seniors/Students $15.00, are available from the Dalhousie Arts Centre Box Office, 902-494-3820, toll free 1-800-874-1669/ Location: Sir James Dunn Theatre, Dalhousie Arts Centre.

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The Ukrainian Easter Egg Event

Watch the slide show prepared by journalism students from King's College, March 11, 2009.

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Russian Music Delights

Chamber Series Concert III:  "Russian Delights"
Sunday, March 8, 3:00 pm, Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts

An all star cast including faculty members will team up with pianist Peter Allen in a concert of some of the great Russian music ever written. Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and more.  Tickets are $15 ($10 for students) available from the Music Department and at the door. Please call 494-2418 or visit http://music.dal.ca and click on the Music Calendar for further details on our 2008/09 winter season.

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Dalhousie Arts Centre Explores Conflicts in Chechnya and Georgia

The ironshirts (James MacDonald, Andrew Cardinal) pursue Grusha through the countryside.  Nick Pearce Photo

Described as a "morality masterpiece," The Caucasian Chalk Circle was written by Bertolt Brecht and is performed by third-year acting students under the direction of Margot Dionne. The play runs February 11 to 14, 2009, at the David Mack Murray Theatre, Dalhousie Arts Centre. The action has been moved to the 21st century and is set in the rebellious former Soviet republics.

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A Dalhousie family history


Katherine (Katya) Eady joined the Intensive Russian program in St. Petersburg in January, 2007, and she says: "It was fantastic!" Katya is just one of dozens of our students who decide to go for an exciting semester abroad every year. But she is, probably, the only one who made the right choice after her mother, Mary Laws, also took part in the Dalhousie Russian exchange in... 1979. It was different then and they stayed about 40 kms outside Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was named during the Soviet era) at a place called "The Dunes." Finally, Katya's parents, Stephen and Mary Eady, met in a Russian class at Waterloo, although they have no Russian heritage that they know of.

Do you have a story? Share it with us!

Picture: Katherine (Katya) Eady (middle), Jen Egolf (left) and Danielle Andres in front of Dalhousie school (the Smolny Institute) in St. Petersburg
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Our Faculty Members in News

Dancing among the stars

It sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, and in fact, it is. Anyone who’s read The Stardance Trilogy by science fiction writer Spider Robinson and his wife Jeanne, is familiar with the concept of “zero-gravity dance.” Now, this 30-year dream is becoming a reality (and an Imax film), thanks in part to Dalhousie professor John Barnstead...   Read the full article
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'Lolita is famous, not I'

In the now-famous Vanity Fair photo, 15-year-old Miley Cyrus is suggestively wrapped in a satin sheet, her hair disheveled, her red lips in a pout. Some say the photo is nothing more than an artistic portrait of a pretty teenager. Others say it’s a disturbing, Lolita-like way for a young girl—let alone a Disney princess who’s every move is watched and emulated by legions of young fans—to be depicted... Read the full article

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Dr. Peter Rollberg (The George Washington University)

"The Artist in the Films of Tarkovski, Paradjanov, and Shengelaia: Mission, Spirituality, Resistance"

Professor Rollberg speaks in front of the students and Dalhousie faculty members.
Monday, 31 March.

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by William Nicholson

Shows run between 4-30 March, 2008

Neptune Theatre, 1593 Argyle St., Halifax

On June 24, 1812, Napoleon led an invasion force of 691,501 soldiers across the river Neman, poised to conquer Moscow. Met by a fierce Russian fighting force, Napoleon’s army was ferociously trounced and driven into retreat…

It’s while reading about this fateful battle that Edward, a teacher at a boy’s school, makes a momentous decision – to leave Alice, his wife of 34 years. But ending a marriage is brutal, and the ensuing fracas is an explosive encounter where both sides walk away battered and wounded.

“Riveting. . . Subtle and powerful, [with] marvelous emotional complexity.”
- John Lahr, The New Yorker

“The best new play in twenty years. . . This perfectly written masterwork shimmers with delicacy and precision.”
- The Journal News
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Congratulations to John Barnstead on the publication of his new book,
And Other Poems (Peregrination Press, 2007, 192 pp.)!
The book can be

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Russian Department is a Great Success at 2007 Open House

This year Expo featured extensive information about Dalhousie's programs and areas of study, with great displays and opportunities to talk with instructors (Friday, Oct. 19, 2007, 10 am - 4:00 pm).

    
In the pictures: David Hall (3rd year, BA student) writes to everyone interested in our program their names in Cyrillic alphabet. David's t-shirt says in Russian: "Pushkin - is Our Everything." Dr. Shannon Spasova and Dr. Yuri Leving on the right.
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Three Sisters

By Anton Chekhov
Directed by Jure Gantar


October 16 - 20
David Mack. Murray Theatre
Order

The Russian Student Society would like to invite you to a night of Russian poetry reading. Please come and share with the students of the society a reading of some of your favourite Russian poetry. Detailed information can be found on the Russian Student Society page.

We just started a new year! Welcome back to our exciting Russian classes!

The participants of the Monday Russian lunches program get together after the summer break. Do you want to join them?

Applications for Intensive Russian Program due

What's it like to spend a semester at Saint Petersburg State University? In 2005, Dal News caught up with Intensive Russian Program participants Rebecca Lewicki, a third-year Bachelor of Science student from Lawrencetown, Nova Scotia; Jodie Church, a transfer student from Balmertown, Ont.; and Meaghan Bernard, a third-year Bachelor of Arts student hailing from Sackville, Nova Scotia, before and during their four month-stint in Saint Petersburg. 

Check out the poster for Intensive Russian Program 2008-09. The programme cost is $2,900.00 which includes airfare Canada-Russia-Canada, visa application fee, 4-months' tuition and accommodation in Russia.

We are still accepting  applications! For inquiries and requests for application forms, please contact rusn@dal.ca or (902)-494-3473.

2007 Glazov Memorial Award is Announced 

Hilary Drummond was announced as the recipient of the 2007 Yuri Glazov Memorial Award for her outstanding capacity to combine civic duty and charitable service with a love for the humanities. Read the address from the Glazov family written specially for this event.

Photograph: John Barnstead, Chair of the Department of Russian Studies, presents a plaque to the winner during the ceremony on 26 March, 2007.

Evensong Meditations on Dostoevsky during Lent

John Barnstead, Associate Professor of Russian Studies at Dalhousie, will offer a series of Lenten Evensong meditations entitled "Dostoevsky and Christ." Professor Barnstead will ponder Dostoevsky's understanding of the Gospels and his vision of Christ through readings of Dostoevsky's major novels in the light of the annotations in the Bible he carried with him into prison in Siberia. Evensong with hymns; Aniko Lewton-Brain will conduct a small choir.

Occurring Each Sunday through March 25, 2007.
Times: 5:30pm. Phone: 423-1059. Location: St. George's Round Church, 2222 Brunswick.

Annual book launch    

The Annual Book Launch displays new books, editions, translations, chapters in anthologies, journal articles, electronic publications, and review articles published during 2006 by the members of Dalhousie Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. This year featuring work by: Jennifer Bain, Jerome Barkow, Steven Bauer, Betty Bednarski, Christopher Bell, David Black, Judith Thompson, Julia Wright, and many others. The Department of Russian Studies presents the volume of articles co-edited by Yuri Leving, Empire N. Nabokov and Heirs (2006). The event took place March 1st in the Fireplace Lounge (McCain Arts and Social Building).

New course summer 2007

Learn all about Russian science and scientists. Explore the vast Siberian lands — without leaving the classroom. Learn about saving endangered species in Russia. And, what could be more exciting than the space program? In the History of Russian Natural Science (RUSN 2034.03), students learn from an instructor who has worked in the Chernobyl zone after the nuclear disaster, and who has been to the Russian Mission Control Centre of the space program and spoken to Russian cosmonauts. Check out the poster.

Everyone is cordially invited to a concert of bard songs and poetry. Tataina and Mikhail are bards from Toronto. They sing the poetry of famous Russian authors as well as their own works. They are the leaders of the Toronto club "KSP". Please check the poster (PDF).

The concert will take place on Saturday, April 14, 7 pm at All Nations Christian Reformed Church Hall, 2535 Robie St. Tickets are $10 and $7. For more information contact Dr. Olga Velikanova.

Day of Commemoration

October 30 is the annual day to commemorate the victims of political repressions during Stalinism. Political repression in the USSR contributed a lot to the flow of emigration from the USSR. The Department of Russian Studies organized an event in recognition of this day of remembrance on Oct. 30 at University Hall (MacDonald Bldg). Read the program. Please see photos from the event.

Pushkin's African heritage explored

The Russian Studies department isn't the first place you'd expect to delve into issues of black identity, but that's the focus of a new course on Aleksandr Puskhin (RUSN 3102.03). "Most people are familiar with Pushkin as the Father of Russian Literature, yet remain ignorant of the African ancestry which he openly embraced," says Dr. Esmeralda Thornhill, a law professor who developed the course with Professor John Barnstead, chair of Russian Studies. Read the full story in Dalhousie, The Alumni Magazine (Page, 10 Winter 2006) [PDF].